Ooops! Turns out women are (sexist) pigs, too. And they're completely blind to it.

I'm a 48 y/o straight, single man and currently employed as a social worker, a heavily female dominated field. The team I work on consists of 5 women between age 21 and 33, and myself. I was recently at a department party and out of about 20-25 people, 4 were men.

Being an old guy, I believe demographics matter, and to the point of this thread, gender. I can only speculate - youth and inexperience? idealism? post-sexist generation? - I've been lectured by the 20 y/o's about how it's wrong to reinforce gender role concepts such as one I had put forth: "Hey, you know, I need to talk to him about this. It's different coming from a man." The response to that was, in so many words, "It shouldn't be different and you shouldn't reinforce this."

So I've been doing my best to respect their point of view and have done a very good job. Once, I said something I didn't realize was sexist, but they helped me understand why it was. I thanked them for helping me understand. Then Thursday, in an attempt to boost my coworker's morale (we all rallied around her) after a bad experience with a client, I texted (we are community outreach and work independently) something regrettable: "That's bullshit, C, we all know you're a sweetheart."

Sweatheart, I texted, YIKES!

Everyone let it go, but after about 5 minutes passed, I realized what I had done and was mortified. I texted an apology to everyone at that point, stating I can do better. I then apologized to her face-to-face when we got back to the office.

So that covers me, but this thread isn't about me. It's about women, they're sexist pigs, they don't know it, in fact they're blind to it, and when you point it out, meh...they really don't care.



So long, long ago, before the lecture I mentioned above about gender roles and whatnot, on about 3 occasions, the staff meeting got derailed by a conversation about different, very hot male staff in other offices. Each time it happened, I chuckled inside. Finally, after the 3rd occasion, I turned to the woman next to me and whispered, "You guys get away with a lot!" She replied, "Like what?" I returned, "When it happens, I'll nudge you."

Every single one of them was in on it, the team supervisor, nurse (6th woman), and young post-sexist generation women, alike. There's two really, sexist pig aspects to this, one I'll address later. For now, I want to inform you just how "bad" (i.e., pig like) all of these women are. Every single one of them lives with their husband, fiance, or long-time boyfriend. All of them! I'm trying to come up with a scenario in which married (or other) women would not have that visceral "My husband/boyfriend is always looking at other women and it hurts me!" reaction. I cannot.

Those staff meetings occurred literally months ago. Fast forward to Friday, the very day after my regrettable "sweetheart" text.

So Friday rolls along and one of them cracked out of turn, then the dam broke. Unbeknownst to me, one of the women had a private meeting with the team heartthrob. On the group text in which I was included, there was a barrage of giddy gah gah over him and his interaction with one of the post-sexist generation women (D, the lecturer). The supervisor was deep in the muck, too.

Gotcha!

So I butted in with this text:

"Oh boy, glad I'm the only male on the team and not one of 5 men talking about a hot female coworker in front of the lone woman on the team."

Oh, they carried on as if I wasn't even there. In fact, only one woman, C (the sweetheart from the previous day) replied directly to me immediately: "It's nice that we can objectify men just the same!"

An hour or two later, I got back to the office and walked right back into the middle of this ongoing swooning. D, the 21 y/o post-sexist generation lecturer was right in it but blushing because she knew she got caught. She also noticed I was taken aback. She scrambled and said, "We love you, M".

I left soon after and almost immediately received a text from D who said she was sorry she made me feel uncomfortable and it was totally hypocritical of her and she won't do it again. She went on and said I was totally right, if it was reversed (5 men talking about a hot female coworker), each one of them would be freaking out.

Since it happened 3 times months ago, and continued after I sent out my "Gotcha!" text, I'm not going to give D the benefit of the doubt in that she had any intention of apologizing to me. The apology came only after she saw my stunned face and WTF expression.

Ladies, don't you hate it when that happens?

Yeah, but if we were paying attention from the start...

we would have had every reason to believe he'd adopt these positions. Many here knew all that because they were paying close attention during the debates and stuff.

Funny how when men advocate for themselves...

a whole different narrative emerges than when women usurp the topic of male contraception from a male's point of view.

l just invented the marketing plan for male contraception

An erection-contreception pill that promises to make your penis bigger. The promise is the hook. Seems men will buy anything that merely promises to make their penis bigger.

TM (c) all rights reserved by WTH

So a different Democrat would have been more effective...

Obama gets a free pass from many here because people misrepresent the facts and say Congress blocks everything. There's also this notion that, with respect to the things he has delivered (which we know can't be much because of obstruction) they wouldn't have been championed by any Democrat. He's just a Democrat who moves to the right to comprmise, but otherwise can't get much done.

Nothing special.

To the DUers who constantly bemoan: what happened to DU?

What you're seeing here is playing out as follows:

On one side are the passive voice populists, which include both Clintons and Obama. They argue that our Gilded Age inequality is the product of technology and globalization, as if these were autonomous forces like the weather. The effects — a declining middle class, stagnant wages, spreading misery — can be ameliorated by sensible policies, like the agenda Sargent ticks off. Most of all, Americans need to make certain the next generation gets better education and training so they can better compete in the global marketplace. Universal preschool is a first step to that. But the largest thrust — driven by the party’s deep pocket donors — is an assault on teacher’s unions and public schools, investment in charters, public and private, and a focus on high-stakes testing to measure teacher and school performance.

Undergirding this is an acceptance that we can’t really afford to do even the minimum in public education or child poverty, so the focus has to be on cheaper ways to make progress. This assumption also fuels the interest in cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits, experimenting with public-private partnerships to raise funds, and so on. All this assumes that we’re close to the limits on taxes, that corporate tax reform should be “revenue neutral,” (that is, companies should not contribute one dime more to our investment or budget needs), and that taxes on the wealthy can’t produce much additional revenue.

The activist-voice populists disagree fundamentally with both the analysis and the prescription. They argue that extreme inequality results from rules that were rigged to benefit the few and not the many. That leads to the demand for structural reforms to change the rules: fair and balanced trade and tax policies to replace those created by and for the multinationals; breaking up big banks and curbing Wall Street’s casino as opposed to accepting banks that are too big to fail and too big to save; progressive tax reforms to create revenue for the public investments that we need in everything from education to infrastructure to an expanded safety net; empowering workers and curbing CEO license to ensure workers share in the profits they help to produce; expanding Social Security and public pensions while moving further towards true universal, affordable health care.

These differences are only now emerging, as the failure of the recovery forces a bigger debate about our economy.

The Wall Street wing presses forward with corporate trade deals that are opposed by a growing majority of voters. The bankers bear no accountability for their pervasive frauds and lawlessness, while most Americans are looking for perp walks. Well-heeled lobbies block any sensible tax reform, while polls show Americans strongly want the rich and the corporations to pay their fair share of taxes. Obama has already felt the revolt of the Democratic base against his plans to pare Social Security benefits. Clinton and Obama have been essentially AWOL in the war on labor and collective bargaining, essential elements of any strategy to rebuild the middle class.

Economic sanctions...

Cut his water, electricity, etc... until he pays his bills. No confrontation.

Actually, it will come in the form of a list of things we'd...

expect from any Dem President. Of couse, that list would omit the things that really make THIS Dem President very agreeable to the very people his cheerleaders hate so much.

To paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy, You might not be a Democrat when you lose objectivity.

Settle down...An argument predicated on obstruction can be turned on its face...

If moving to the right is a proven path of failure, at some point, start DEMANDING MORE!!!! In so doing, you'll energize your base. The alternative, you risk losing your base. That's exactly what's played out.

Duh...

Tweeted the BLM (exactly 140 characters link included)

@BLMNational Can you please see to it that Eric Parker of Idaho is arrested for aiming his gun at federal officers? http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/04/the-irony-of-cliven-bundys-unconstitutional-stand/360587/

also Tweeted ThinkProgress, The Nation, Harry Reid, and many, many more...